Kingshot — Gift Codes, hero tier list and calculators

There are two ways in, and they behave differently. This matters, because most people who type a code and see nothing happen assume the code was dead when in fact the rewards were already sitting in their mailbox.

1. Inside the game — faster

Tap your Profile, then Settings, then the Gift Code tab, and enter the code there. We checked this path on the live client on 2026-07-26. If a code is valid you get the confirmation immediately.

2. The official Gift Code Center — works with the game closed

Century Games runs ks-giftcode.centurygame.com. The page asks for three things in this order:

• Player ID — the page's own note says to check it in-game through your Avatar in the top left corner.
• Kingdom — your kingdom number.
• Enter Gift Code, then Confirm.

The page states plainly that rewards are sent directly to your character's mail after redemption. Nothing appears on the web page itself. Check your in-game mailbox before deciding a code failed.

3. Why a code fails

Almost always one of four things. The code expired — most Kingshot codes run for days, not months. The code was region-locked. Your account already redeemed it; codes are one use per account, not per device. Or you retyped it: codes are case sensitive, so copy and paste.

4. Why our code list is empty

We only publish codes we have redeemed ourselves and watched land. Copying a list from another site takes ten seconds and costs you a wasted trip to the mailbox when they are stale. The official page above is always current; we are not going to pretend to add value in front of it.

Source: the official Kingshot Gift Code Center interface and the live game client, both checked 2026-07-26.

Century Games publishes the combat rules in its own English help centre, and very little of it shows up on tier-list sites. The parts that change how you actually play:

1. Rows are fixed

In the publisher's own words: Infantry are the primary damage takers and are positioned in the front row; Cavalry are the mobile units and are positioned in the middle row; Archers provide the highest single-target damage and are positioned in the back row. Attacks work through the front row first. That is the whole reason a march with too few Infantry evaporates against one with lower total power — your Archers are exposed the moment the front line is gone.

2. Three battle types, three rule sets

The help centre separates Expedition battles, Rally battles and Garrison battles. They do not score or stack the same way, and advice written for one is frequently wrong for another.

3. Joining a rally is not the same as leading one

When you join someone else's rally, only a limited set of your heroes' skills is contributed — the practical effect is that a cheap hero with a strong first skill is worth close to an expensive one if you mostly join. If you are the one pressing rally, your full skill set is what the whole rally is built on, so it is worth being the strongest Governor online before you start it.

4. Bringing heroes changes your troop cap

Sending troops with no heroes attached does not just cost you skills — it costs you march capacity. In damage-scored events this is the single most common unforced error.

5. Troop tier beats troop count

Two Governors with identical troop numbers score very differently if one is running a mixed low-tier march and the other is at a uniform high tier. Converting low-tier troops upward moves your Bear Hunt and Viking Vengeance numbers more than training more bodies does.

Rows, troop roles and battle types: Century Games official English help centre, Combat FAQ. Points 3 to 5 are player-verified behaviour, not publisher text, and are marked as such.

The mistake that costs a free-to-play account a whole generation is spreading shards evenly. Four stars and five stars are not one step apart — five stars is what lets a hero survive one generation past its release, and that is the entire free-to-play strategy.

Gen 1

Jabel — do not spend universal Legendary shards on her. She reaches 5 stars on her own given time. Helga — keep her strictly for leading Bear Hunt rallies; with her exclusive weapon at +10 she never falls off. Saul — his construction speed skill justifies 3 stars early and nothing after Gen 2 arrives. Amadeus — realistically a spender's hero, but simply owning him applies his star bonus permanently, which makes him a reasonable small purchase around VIP 7.

Gen 2

Zoe is the free-to-play hero of this generation and is worth taking to 5 stars. Marlin should stop at 3–4 stars for Arena and monster clearing — forcing her to 5 is wasted once the Gen 4 Archer exists.

Gen 3

Petra is the first rally-leading hero you will own and she carries Bear Hunt for months. 5 stars if at all possible, 4 as the floor. Eric and Jaeger are good and are not free-to-play targets.

Gen 4

Take Rosa to at least 4 stars to cover the gap Marlin leaves. Skip the Cavalry slot — Petra is still doing that job.

Gen 5

Vivian is where every universal Legendary shard you have saved since Gen 1 goes. She is a rally hero, which is exactly what a free-to-play account gets value from.

Why rally heroes and not defensive ones

Defensive low-generation heroes only perform when Governor Gear, Governor Charms and alliance buffs are all behind them. That is a spender's stack. Rally heroes convert shards into event score directly, which is what a free-to-play account can actually cash.

Reconstructed from Korean community route guides and cross-checked against our own Korean page. Generation and troop assignments shift between versions.

Hero Gear is the longest-running resource sink in Kingshot, and the reason most Governors stall is that the cost curve is not smooth — it is flat with cliffs.

What Mithril is

The publisher's English help centre defines it in one line: Mithril is a material used to imbue Gear. It is not an enhancement currency and it is not interchangeable with EXP. The help centre keeps Ascension and Imbuement as separate operations in the same article, which is why advice that treats them as one thing gives you the wrong shopping list.

Where the cliffs are

From Lv 1 to Lv 100 the cost is EXP only, rising in steps — 10 at Lv 1, 105 at Lv 20, 470 at Lv 50, 2,400 at Lv 100. Then the shape changes. Lv 101, 120, 140, 160, 180 and 200 are milestone levels that consume Mithril and Mythic Gear instead of EXP, and they scale hard: Lv 120 wants 10 Mithril, Lv 200 wants 50. Everything between the milestones is EXP again.

What that means in practice

Two consequences. First, EXP is never your real constraint above Lv 100 — Mithril is, and Mithril arrives at a fixed rate from events, so a plan that ignores the milestone levels is a plan that stops. Second, because scope multiplies everything, deciding now whether you are gearing one piece, one troop set of four, or all twelve is the difference between a two-week goal and a six-month one. The calculator on this page does that multiplication for you.

Where Mithril comes from

Bear Hunt and the alliance events are the steady sources. This is the practical argument for showing up to every Bear Hunt cycle even when your damage bracket is low — the floor bracket still pays, fifteen times a month.

Definitions of Mithril, Mythic, Legendary, Governor Gear and Ascension/Imbuement: Century Games official English help centre. The level cost table is in-game data, not a publisher release, and our label "Enhancement EXP" is unconfirmed — see the notes at the bottom of the page.

Bear Hunt is the name Century Games uses in its English help centre, and it is the single most important recurring event for a free-to-play account, because it is where Hero Gear materials come from.

1. The score is damage, and damage is tier

Two Governors with the same troop count score very differently. Someone running 70% tiers 1–7 and 30% tier 8 will land a bracket or two below someone running 100% tier 8 with the same numbers. Converting troops upward beats training more of them. This is the most reliable way to move up a bracket.

2. Join the biggest rally, not the first one

Load your four marches to full strength into the rallies opened by the highest-power members of your alliance. If a rally fills before you get in, wait a beat and take the next big one rather than joining whatever is open — a full march in a strong rally out-scores four marches spread across weak ones.

3. Always bring heroes

Troops sent without heroes lose both the skill contribution and march capacity. In a damage-scored event that is a straight subtraction from your bracket.

4. Do not expect Viking Vengeance to behave the same way

Bear Hunt is winnable for a free-to-play account. Viking Vengeance is structurally harder: top scorers receive reinforcements filling six marches while you have four. That is a ceiling, not a skill gap, and it is worth knowing before you spend a month chasing a number you cannot reach.

5. What the brackets pay

Rewards are paid in three items — a crafting hammer, a hero gear chest, and an enhancement component — plus alliance coins. We describe them rather than name them because we have not confirmed the English client's names. Per run, by personal damage points:

Across roughly 15 runs a month, sitting in the bottom bracket the whole time still accumulates about 150 hammers, 30 chests and 165 components. The gap between the bottom bracket and the top one is under 2×. Attendance is worth more than optimisation here.

Bracket figures are cross-checked from independent reference tables and are not published by Century Games. The alliance coin column is missing from the source data and we have left it out rather than estimate it. Values shift between versions.

Truegold is Century Games' own English word for it — it appears in the App Store description: gather enough Truegold and upgrade your Town Center. It is the mid-game wall, and unlike resources you cannot farm your way around it.

What needs it

Eight buildings require Truegold past the mid-game threshold, each in ten tiers: the Town Center, the Embassy, the Command Center, the Infirmary, the three troop barracks, and the War Academy. Because every one of them feeds combat power, the order you take them in is a real decision rather than a cosmetic one.

The refining curve — this is the part that matters

Tempered Truegold is produced by a weekly refining system, and the cost per refine rises in stages as your weekly refine count climbs:

Look at the ratio, not the yield. Stage 1 costs 20 Truegold for 1–3 Tempered. Stage 5 costs 160 for 3–12 — eight times the cost for roughly four times the return. Refining deep into a week is a straightforward loss.

The routine

Do your 20 stage-1 refines in one burst on Monday, then refine once a day for the rest of the week. That keeps you on the cheap stage, keeps the first-refine discount alive every day, and stops you from sleepwalking into stage 4 pricing. Over a few months this is the difference between one extra building tier and none.

"Truegold" and "Town Center" are Century Games' English wording. The refining stage table is cross-checked from independent reference tables and is not a publisher release; per-building tier costs vary by building and are not reproduced here.